Siege of Shadows (Effigies #2)(12)
“Director Chafik has some information to show us in Communications,” Belle said.
“Is it about the dead guy?” I asked, admittedly with little tact or respect for the dearly departed. “Or the flash drive?”
Belle quickly looked over her shoulder to where Chafik was waiting by the front entrance of the building. “I haven’t given it to him. Not yet. Just a feeling.”
“But—”
“Don’t mention it to him either until I decide what to do.” She straightened up. “Come, let’s go.”
None of us much liked being bossed around, but we stumbled hot and groggy out of the car anyway.
“Not feeling the new arrangement,” Chae Rin, never one to let her displeasure go unnoticed, grumbled as she shut the door behind her. Lake shrugged and obediently went ahead of us. I was about to follow when Chae Rin grabbed the short sleeve of my T-shirt. “Look, I know back in that hospital after France, I was the one who said we should stick together, and we all agreed. And that’s fine, but are we really just going to let Belle call the shots?”
“Isn’t that what she’s been doing?” My nonchalant shrug couldn’t mask the weary sliver of dread in my voice.
“Hey, guys!” Lake called to us just as she, Belle, and Director Chafik were about to enter the facility. “You coming?”
“Yeah, we’re coming!” I called back with a little wave. “Give us a sec!”
“You know as well as I do, kid.” Chae Rin peered over at Belle and Lake as they disappeared through the entrance. “Something hasn’t been right with Belle since—”
“Since she almost wished for Natalya to take over my body for good.”
Chae Rin straightened up and sighed. “Since she found out Natalya’s death wasn’t a suicide like the Sect had told everyone it was.”
And that the Sect could be involved. I was the one who’d seen her death scene myself in my dreams. The perks of having other Effigies’ memories live on inside you.
Perhaps that was why Belle wasn’t keen on handing over the flash drive.
“We have to cut her some slack,” I said quietly. “This isn’t easy for Belle. She’s going through stuff.”
“Like none of us are?” Chae Rin shook her head, exasperated. “I’d ask why you’re so willing to overlook her bullshit, but then you are her number one ass-kisser, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“That’s not it!”
“It’s not? Then what is it?”
I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her why my fingers were curling with guilt. Why my heart beat a bit heavier with dread every time I saw Belle.
I hadn’t told Belle yet about the memory Natalya had shown me in France. I hadn’t told anyone.
Chae Rin flicked me right in the middle of my furrowed eyebrows—a soft flick, thankfully. With her strength, she could have caved my skull in. “Come on, you can’t tell me you’re one hundred percent comfortable with this. You saw what she did in that hideout.”
I did. But it was all the same. After our penultimate run-in with Saul two months ago, we’d decided that we had to work as a team from now on if we were going to be able to face the challenges up ahead. Well, every team needed a leader. That was Belle. I guess. It wasn’t a verbal agreement. We didn’t shake hands or anything. It was just . . . understood. Belle had the most experience out of all four of us. Unlike Lake and Chae Rin, who had only become Effigies in the past two or three years, nineteen-year-old Belle had somehow managed to survive fighting phantoms for six years. For an Effigy, that was pretty damn massive.
It was the Seven-Year Rule. Belle had told me once before. A little saying among the Sect. If you could survive more than seven years fighting monsters, you had either spent your life hiding or honed your skills enough to become a godlike fighting machine. Natalya held the world record, having spent fourteen years battling as an Effigy. Only fourteen.
Effigies didn’t live long. The truth of it still terrified me.
“Regardless, she’s the best equipped out of all of us for the job. Besides, it’s not like it’s a dictatorship. If she gets out of line, we can do something about it,” I told her, but I wasn’t too confident about that.
“Yeah.” Chae Rin’s expression darkened as she cracked her knuckles. “I’ll do something about it. Better believe it.”
Great. I sighed as Chae Rin went on ahead. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with. An Effigy brawl was the last thing anyone needed. But these days, despite our “arrangement,” you could never really know when one bad day would get us there. We were a team. We were supposed to be. I kind of wanted us to be.
Maybe “team” was too strong a word.
4
AT WELL OVER SIX FEET, director Chafik with his stocky build towered over all of us, except maybe for Lake, who was model tall in her own right. After a short greeting, we followed him into the facility.
There must have been one standard design for all Sect facilities. So far I’d been in two headquarters—one in Argentina and one in London—and the twisting, sterile corridors looked just the same. Communications, too. Once Chafik typed the security code into a keypad by a set of wide silver doors, and once the small screen scanned and verified his face with a gentle blue light, the door slid open and there it was, two stories of busy agents in suits hurrying past one another as they carried information to different stations. Most of the agents sat at rows of computers, typing away at a furious pace, speaking into headsets to whom I could only guess were agents in different parts of the facility, or maybe even agents at other facilities.